Recruitment Drive: Kid's Stuff
by Afalstein
Summary: "So, about those kids we met..." Skye started. "No." Coulson answered immediately. The team goes in to investigate rumors of a mad scientist in what seems like a quiet, normal, midwestern town. But the children in the town quickly show themselves to be neither quiet nor normal.


**Kid's Stuff**

It was excessively quiet in the Bus on the flight back to the Playground. May had locked herself in the forward cabin nearly immediately after they had come back to the plane, and Skye, Tripp, and Coulson now sat in the main lobby of the vessel, saying nothing and desperately avoiding each other's gazes.

Skye, of course, was the one to break the silence. "So, about those kids we met..."

"No." said Coulson.

* * *

"Excuse me, sir?" Coulson turned at the question to regard a ten year-old redheaded boy with a very pronounced nose and practically no chin. "What seems to be the trouble?"

"Ah... nothing." Coulson cast a quick glance up at the tower and the explosions echoing down to the street. "We're handling a gas leak on the top floor." He said, adopting his professional attitude. "So far the explosions have been fairly localized, but the building could go up at any moment, so we're clearing the area." He gave his best fatherly smile to the boy and the knot of children forming around him. "You should probably all run along home to your parents."

"Oh really?" The boy tilted his head questioningly. "Is it a shale gas or a coalbed methane derivative or a methanogenic archae emission?"

"Uh..." Coulson blinked, thrown. "Well... the... the last one."

"Ah! Environmentally friendly! Nice." The boy gave a wide grin, nodding to the curiously silent green-haired (Coulson did a double take. Yes, it was green) boy beside him. "But hey." His expression grew a little puzzled. "If the leak is on the top floor, shouldn't it just rise? Why is the whole building probably going to go up?"

"Ah..." Coulson stalled. "It's... kinda complicated, and this is sort of a dangerous place to talk about the particulars, so you should probably leave and you can read all about it in the paper tomorrow..."

"Oh, don't worry sir!" The redhead said, still smiling brightly. "Ferb's portable ion deflector shield will keep us all safe!" He jabbed a finger at the green-haired boy (again, seriously? green?), who solemnly held up a remote.

Coulson blinked. "I'm sure it's a very nice deflector shield." He nodded, holding up his hands. "But you understand there are insurance reasons..."

"A deflector shield like that isn't going to cut it, kid." Skye interrupted, leaning out of the van window. "That's actually not a gas explosion up there, it's aliens."

The children gasped and the boy tilted his head quizzically. "Aliens? Like, extraterrestrials?"

"Yup." Skye nodded seriously. "And they've got weaponry that would cut through that little ion shield like you wouldn't believe."

"Really? But they're usually so friendly!"

Skye shrugged. "These ones aren't."

"Wow." The boy's eyes were large and wide. "Do all city gas inspectors deal with aliens?"

"Pretty much." Skye offered a nonchalant nod.

The boy seemed to think this over, than gave a nod of his own. "So... what can we do to help?" He asked, looking up.

Skye froze. "Ah..."

"just... leave it to the professionals, huh kid?" Coulson cut in, waving the boy off and glaring at Skye.

"But we wanna help!"

"How about," Skye cut in, apparently having had time to come up with something, "you create a defensive system to protect your house?"

"Cool! We can do that!" The redhead again looked at the green-haired boy. "Ferb, I know what were gonna do today!"

The children ran off. Coulson turned and looked at Skye with his confused-as-hell face.

"What?" Skye shrugged, leaning back in the seat. "Makes more sense to them than 'insurance.' It's not like anybody's going to believe them, they're just kids."

* * *

"Absolutely not." Coulson repeated.

"But...they seemed... pretty talented. Do you think SHIELD..."

"No." Coulson cut her off.

"Oh c'mon!" Skye pleaded with her superior. "You saw what they did!"

* * *

"Uh, boss?" Skye shaded her eyes, staring up at the sky. "What is that?"

Coulson glanced up at the clouds swirling around the tower and the electricity radiating off of it. "Not good." He concluded, reaching for his ear. "May and Tripp have been quiet too long. I'm going in..."

"Hey mister!"

Coulson head whipped around, and he let out a little groan of frustration. "Look kids," he said, to the group of children running toward them. "I thought I said for you to go home and work on defense system."

"Technically that was my idea." Skye piped up.

"Well it obviously didn't WORK." Coulson muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

"That's just it, sir!" The redheaded boy from before looked as unperturbed and enthusiastic as ever. "We built the system. Only..." He cast a quizzical glance behind him, "It sorta... became self-aware. And built an army of attack drones. Which are headed after us, for some reason." He gave a nervous chuckle as thousands of metal-clad forms filled the skies. "Guess I really should've mentioned that first."

* * *

"Yes, I saw them nearly destroy an entire suburban complex." Coulson answered. "How is that a recomendation, again?"

"No, I'm talking about the part where they _saved_ the suburban complex." Skye argued. "To say nothing of our asses."

* * *

"Holy SHIT!" Skye screamed, as laser blasts rained down around the SUV.

"Kids, behind the car!" Coulson ordered, his gun already out and firing. "Skye, open up the armory and get me something real!"

Skye tossed him an M-16 as she jumped out of the car. "Coulson, this isn't safe! The car could go up at any moment..."

"SHIELD vehicles are built like tanks." Coulson flashed her a confident smile as he cocked the rifle. "We just need to keep them from flanking us."

"Wow." The red-haired kid was staring at their weaponry. "City gas inspectors sure carry some weird equipment. Whaddaya use that for?"

Coulson blinked. "For... rats." He pushed them behind him. "Skye, you take left, I've got right." He touched his ear. "May, Tripp, abort, abort! Hostiles at our position, danger close! We are..."

One particularly nasty robot zoomed over the car and whirled around on them, the laser cannons on its arm glowing an angry red. Coulson, barely blinking, opened fire, but the bullets ricocheted off the metal body.

"Bulletproof exteriors?" He heard the redhead say. "Cool! We never gave them that! Ferb, they're evolving! Are you proud? Because I sure am!"

Coulson threw himself in front of the children, hoping against hope that Skye could get the rest of them to safety.

_FZZZT._

Slowly, Coulson opened his eyes. Laser blasts were bouncing off a translucent green energy dome that encompassed him, the children, Skye, and the car.

The green haired kid was holding up the remote from earlier. "Of course, we did ensure that their weapons couldn't penetrate our shields." He said, in a stiff English accent. "We're not morons."

* * *

"Wasn't that British kid just the cutest? He could be the new Fitz!" A guilty look flashed over Skye's face. "Please don't tell Jenna I said that."

Tripp, who was sitting hunched over and seemingly paying no attention, offered her a half-hearted smile.

"If Fitz WAS here, I'm sure he'd be the first to tell you that ion deflector shields are categorically impossible." Coulson answered. "Using energy to deflect matter isn't really a thing. And even if it was, you wouldn't use ions for it."

"Then why are you and I here with all our important parts still attached?" Skye questioned.

Coulson sighed and rubbed his temple. "Maybe... one of them was a gifted." He suggested. "Which is a reason to keep an eye on them, but not recruit them."

"Yeah? And what about the other thing?"

* * *

"I'm really not comfortable using a grenade launcher like this, Coulson!" Skye shouted, holding the bulky weapon awkwardly. "Or in any way, really!"

"You want to use the Hydra-laser?" Coulson shouted back, leveling the WWII-era weapon at one of the robots beating against the blue energy dome encompassing them. "Or the rocket launcher? We're sort of short on options here!" Again his hand went to his ear. "May, Tripp, please respond!"

"Are you sure you use all this stuff for rats?" Coulson's head jerked around to behold the kids, merrily seated in the back of the SUV, happily taking apart the armory chest. "It seems like it would be more useful against those aliens you mentioned."

"Yeah." A dark-haired girl glanced quizzically down the barrel of a bazooka. "This WASP 58 would be really handy against a low-flying spacecraft. But it looks a little different from the one we used earning the antitank-weaponry patch."

Coulson gaped, turning from the robots. "Uh, kids..."

"You have an anti-tank weapon? That's perfect! C'mon, Isabella, throw it here!" The redhead beckoned. "That's the last part we need. Okay, Buford, now hold still..."

"I get to keep this after we blow up the robots, right?" The burly kid at the center asked. He was wearing a bulletproof vest much too larger for him, which the others seemed to be attaching things to.

"Sure!" The redhead was attaching things in a wild rush. "Why not?"

"It will most likely not last beyond one use anyway." A small Indian boy piped up, affixing the bazooka to what Coulson realized was some sort of arm.

"Kids, look, really," Coulson insisted, hurrying forward. "Get out of there before..."

He and Skye practically fell backwards as their SUV stood up, unfolded a pair of arms, and started to fire rockets at the legion of robots.

* * *

"They turned the SUV into a transformer! I don't have to tell you how awesome that was! Just think of what they could do with a full-on lab! I mean, sure, they're a little young to be SHIELD agents..."

"Yes." Coulson fixed her with a look. "Yes they are."

Skye pouted, but subsided obediently.

Coulson sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "The weirdest things in this job..." He muttered. "At least we all got out okay. Tripp, you and May were up in that tower for the longest time. What was going on up there?"

* * *

"Noooooooo! Not my Rust-inator! Curse you, Perry the Platypus!"

* * *

Tripp groaned and hid his head in his hands. "I'd... really rather not talk about it, sir."

* * *

**A/N:** Eeheeheeheeheehee!

Hey, I never said all the "Recruitment Drive" stories would be serious, did I? Although technically no one gets recruited in this... apparently there are limits even Coulson won't go to. As of "Mission Marvel," Tony Stark and the Avengers are even confirmed to be part of the Phineas-and-Ferb universe, so there's bound to be a Phineas and Ferb equivalent in the MCU. So when you think about it, this isn't really even a crossover.

Once again, a quick plug for "Brighter Futures," the Dresden Files RD story I co-wrote with bissek, and the Recruitment Drive community I put up.


End file.
